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Jan 7, 2025 | 
newstatesman.com | John Mullan
The photo of the author on the jacket of Stranger Than Fiction tells you something. Edwin Frank sits at a small desk, entirely hemmed in by overflowing bookshelves and teetering stacks of books. His reading glasses have been pushed back on his head, so that he can meet your gaze; you have interrupted him in the engrossing business of reading, reading, reading.
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Jan 3, 2025 | 
theguardian.com | John Mullan
David Lodge, who has died aged 89, was, like his close friend Malcolm Bradbury, a professor of English literature who became even better known as a novelist. The two men occupied adjacent offices for some years at Birmingham University in the early 1960s and greatly influenced each other. Both were grammar school boys from non-academic backgrounds who became leading figures in English letters without ever darkening the gateways of Oxford or Cambridge universities.
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Nov 16, 2024 | 
msn.com | John Mullan
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Nov 16, 2024 | 
msn.com | John Mullan
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Nov 16, 2024 | 
msn.com | John Mullan
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Nov 16, 2024 | 
dailymail.co.uk | John Mullan
Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday declared he will do all he can to end the war in Ukraine next year – and Donald Trump in the White House will make it happen ‘faster’. In an interview with Ukrainian radio, the country’s president urged the US to maintain its position that the Kremlin had violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and international law – as Donald Trump prepares to return as US President in January. Mr Zelensky said: ‘We must do everything we can to ensure this war ends next year.
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Aug 15, 2024 | 
afr.com | John Mullan
John MullanAug 16, 2024 – 5.00am or Subscribe to save articleEmailLinkedInTwitterFacebookSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? “I really think that you should read Caledonian Road,” a colleague advised me, soon after the publication of Andrew O’Hagan’s state-of-the-nation novel. “The main character is actually a member of this department.”It sounded more like a warning than a recommendation.
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Aug 10, 2024 | 
newstatesman.com | John Mullan
“I really think that you should read Caledonian Road,” a colleague advised me, soon after the publication of Andrew O’Hagan’s state-of-the-nation novel. “The main character is actually a member of this department.” It sounded more like a warning than a recommendation. But what he said was true.
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Nov 24, 2023 | 
theguardian.com | John Mullan
AS Byatt had a writing career that spanned six decades and featured award-winning novels, short stories and literary criticism. Whether you’re new to the author’s work or wanting to revisit it, John Mullan suggests some good ways in. The entry pointThe weightiness of Byatt’s fiction puts some off. So start with Angels and Insects, a pair of novellas that explore, in brief, some of the themes that most fascinated her. Both are set in the 19th century, where Byatt always seemed peculiarly at home.
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Nov 16, 2023 | 
theguardian.com | John Mullan
Two years after Charles Dickens’s death in 1870, his closest friend, John Forster, published the first volume of his Life of Charles Dickens. Based on letters Dickens had written to him and stories he had told him, it was, in effect, an authorised biography. For Dickens buffs, it has always been both a matchless source and an untrustworthy narrative. By Helena Kelly’s account, it is more misleading than the most sceptical biographer has supposed.
